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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Pa. school district settles webcam spy lawsuits for $610K

Lower Merion will no longer use the tracking program.
Lower Merion will no longer use the tracking program.

A Philadelphia-area school district agreed Monday to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops.

The Lower Merion School District admitted it captured thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops in a misguided effort to locate missing computers.

Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, then 15, charged in an explosive civil-rights lawsuit filed in February that the district used its remote tracking technology to spy on him inside his home. Later evidence unearthed in the case showed that he was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in his bedroom, according to his lawyer, Mark Haltzman.…Read More

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Pa. school settles 2 webcam spy lawsuits for $610K

A Philadelphia-area school district agreed Monday to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops, reports the Associated Press. The Lower Merion School District admitted it captured thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops in a misguided effort to locate missing computers. Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, then 15, charged in an explosive civil-rights lawsuit filed in February that the district used its remote tracking technology to spy on him inside his home. Later evidence unearthed in the case showed that he was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in his bedroom, according to his lawyer, Mark Haltzman. The settlement calls for $175,000 to be placed in a trust for Robbins and $10,000 for a second student who filed suit, Jalil Hassan. Their lawyer, Mark Haltzman, will get $425,000 for his work on the case…

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Feds: No charges in school laptop-spying case

A school accused of spying on students through remote-activated webcams will not be charged.
A school accused of spying on students through remote-activated webcams will not face criminal charges.

No criminal charges will be filed against a suburban Philadelphia school district that secretly snapped tens of thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots on laptops issued to students.

The FBI and federal prosecutors announced Aug. 17 that they could not prove any criminal wrongdoing by Lower Merion School District employees.

“We have not found evidence that would establish beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone involved had criminal intent,” U.S. Attorney Zane D. Memeger said in a statement.…Read More

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Students to see photos snapped in Pa. webcam ‘spying’ case

Students in two suburban Philadelphia high schools will be allowed to view photographs taken by their school-issued laptops, and they may preview them first before deciding which images their parents may see, Computerworld reports. In a court order issued May 14, U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter said that certified letters would be sent to students who had been photographed when their Apple MacBooks’ cameras had been activated by IT personnel of Lower Merion School District. Lower Merion was sued in mid-February by Michael and Holly Robbins, and their teenage son Blake, a high school student at Harriton High School, after an assistant principal accused Blake of selling drugs and taking pills, and used a snapshot taken by his computer as evidence. Robbins claimed the pictures showed him eating candy. The district took more than 30,000 photographs using the students’ webcams, and another 27,000 screenshots using software designed to track lost, missing, or stolen laptops, according to a report commissioned by Lower Merion. That report laid most of the blame on the district’s IT staff for the excessive photo taking using its LANrev software. According to the report, 76 different student laptops were told to capture photographs and screenshots in the last two school years. The letters, which will also be mailed to affected students’ parents or guardians, will indicate the date of webcam activations, and the number of photographs and screenshots taken by each student’s computer. But the teenagers will be shown the images before parents…

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Report: No spying in Pa. school laptops case

Students have been at odds with the Pa. district over images captured by cameras on school-issued laptops.
Students have been at odds with the Lower Merion School District over images captured by cameras on school-issued laptops.

There’s no evidence a suburban Pennsylvania school district used school-issued laptops to spy on students, despite its questionable policies and its lack of regard for students’ privacy, according to a report issued May 3 by attorneys hired by the district.

Concerns about an online chat captured in a screen shot of a school-issued computer led to public disclosure of the Lower Merion School District’s laptop tracking program, according to the report by the Philadelphia law firm Ballard Spahr, which was presented at a meeting of the school board. The firm recommended a ban on remote activations of webcams and remote capturing of screen shots from computers issued to students. (See “Employee in webcam spying flap: Teen had no expectation of privacy” and “Family: Pa. district snared thousands of secret webcam images.”)

Harriton High School student Blake Robbins and his family alleged privacy violations over webcam images taken at home without their knowledge and sued the district, which said it secretly activated the webcams only to find missing laptops but admitted lax policies led it to capture 58,000 images.…Read More

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Employee in webcam spying flap: Teen had no expectation of privacy

A school employee says a student had no expectation to privacy.
A Lower Merion School District employee says student Blake Robbins had no expectation of privacy because he broke the rules of the district's laptop initiative.

A school technology official at the center of a webcam spying scandal says the Pennsylvania student suing her employer should not have had any expectation of privacy, because he took a laptop home without authorization. The development comes as the district in question admits it secretly captured at least 56,000 photographs and screen shots from the web cameras of laptops it issued to high school students.

In a court filing April 20, Lower Merion School District technology coordinator Carol Cafiero said officials activated tracking software that photographed student Blake Robbins because he failed to pay a required insurance fee.

Cafiero, who is on paid leave while the district investigates the laptop controversy, claims that Robbins had no legitimate expectation of privacy because he broke the rules. She also denies claims by Robbins’ attorney that she might be a “voyeur.”…Read More

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Family: Pa. district snared thousands of secret webcam images

Students claim webcams on school-issued laptops may have snapped unauthorized pictures.
Students claim webcams on school-issued laptops may have snapped unauthorized pictures.

New allegations have surfaced in the case of a suburban Philadelphia school district accused of activating laptop web cameras to spy on students in their homes.

The Lower Merion School District snapped secret webcam pictures of a high school student when he was partially undressed or sleeping in his bed, and it also captured instant messages he exchanged with friends, the student charged in court papers last week.

The district concedes its efforts to find missing school-issued laptops by remotely activating the machines’ webcams was misguided, and officials vowed anew April 16 to release the findings of their internal investigation, “good and bad.”…Read More

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School webcam spying prompts call for new laws

Privacy laws haven't kept up with changes in technology, says Sen. Arlen Specter.
Privacy laws haven't kept up with changes in technology, says Sen. Arlen Specter.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., is pushing for new federal laws on electronic privacy as a school district in his home state struggles with a lawsuit over attempts to locate missing laptops by turning on webcams remotely—something that could have enabled it to record students at home.

Specter said at a field hearing of a Senate subcommittee March 29 that he believes existing wiretap and video-voyeurism statutes do not adequately address concerns in an era marked by the widespread use of cell-phone, laptop, and surveillance cameras.

“My family and I recognize that in today’s society, almost every place we go outside of our home we are photographed and recorded by traffic cameras, ATM cameras, and store surveillance cameras,” Blake Robbins, a student at Harriton High School who sued the Lower Merion School District last month, wrote in a statement read into the record at the hearing of the crime and justice subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.…Read More

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Official: FBI probing school webcam spying case

The FBI reportedly is probing whether any federal wiretap laws were violated.
The FBI reportedly is probing whether any federal wiretap laws were violated.

A Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly switching on laptop computer webcams inside students’ homes is under investigation by federal authorities, a law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case told the Associated Press (AP).

For its part, the district says it never used webcam images to monitor or discipline students and believes one of its administrators has been “unfairly portrayed and unjustly attacked.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will look into whether any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws were violated by Lower Merion School District officials, the official—who spoke on condition of anonymity—told the AP on Feb. 19.…Read More

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School district sued for using webcams to spy on students

Students reportedly have put tape over the webcams in their school-issued laptops in light of the allegations.
Students reportedly have put tape over the webcams in their school-issued laptops in light of the allegations.

A suburban Philadelphia school district used the webcams in school-issued laptop computers to spy on students at home, potentially catching them and their families in compromising situations, a family claims in a federal lawsuit.

Lower Merion School District officials would not comment on the accusation, but angry students already have responded by putting tape on their laptop cameras and microphones.

Sophomore Tom Halperin described students as “pretty disgusted” and noted that his class recently read 1984, the George Orwell classic that coined the term “Big Brother.”…Read More

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